Institute for Biblical & Scientific Studies

News:
May 16, 2005

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Sharon
meets 'Jews for Jesus' follower
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, interested in shoring up his standing in the
influential US Evangelical Christian community, met eight leading Evangelical
figures Tuesday, including Jay Sekulow, a high profile Messianic Jew (The
Jerusalem Post).

Pope
puts John Paul on fast track to sainthood
In a surprise announcement to priests in Rome, the Pope told them he had
dispensed with Church rules that impose a five-year waiting period after
a candidate's death before the procedure that leads to sainthood can even
start (Associated Press).

Religion
Today: Who is James Dobson?
These are heady times for Dobson, who turned 69 last month and still puts
in 12-hour days at the ministry he founded in 1977 (Associated Press).

Prayer
effective as painkiller?
More than half of those who responded to a USA TODAY/ABC News/Stanford University
Medical Center poll released Monday say they use prayer to control pain.
Of those, 90% say it worked well, and 51% say "very well." (USA
Today).

New
York's Museum of Biblical Art opens
The Museum of Biblical Art, one of the few in America to explore the theme,
opens Thursday with a striking show of works on scriptural motifs by self-taught,
Southern folk artists (Associated Press).

Science in the News

Archaeology/Anthropology

Garden
of Eden
The latest research on its location by Walter Mattfeld.

Gangrene
Felled King Tut May 11, 2005
Egyptian scientists have finally lifted the veil of mystery surrounding
famed pharaoh Tutankhamun's death, saying he died of a swift attack of gangrene
after breaking his leg, and reconstructing his face.

Astronomy

First
Extrasolar Planet Photo Claimed May 2, 2005
Astronomers believe they have for the first time taken a picture of a planet
in another solar system, European scientists said on Saturday. The planet,
known as an exoplanet, is five times bigger and 10 times hotter than the
biggest planet in our solar system, Jupiter.

Saturn
Moon Phoebe Adopted.The scientists believe that Phoebe, an odd, small moon of Saturn, was
captured by the planet's gravity from the Kuiper Belt, a region beyond Neptune
where frozen rubble left over from the formation of the solar system resides.
The Kuiper Belt is the birthplace of comets and other icy objects.

Have
we cracked Saturn's walnut?
Its moon Iapetus is darker on one hemisphere and boasts a huge ridge at
the equator on that side - the two phenomena may have a single cause.

Cassini Finds
New Saturn Moon That Makes Waves Pasadena (JPL) May 11, 2005
In a spectacular kick-off to its first season of prime ring viewing, which
began last month, the Cassini spacecraft has confirmed earlier suspicions
of an unseen moon hidden in a gap in Saturn's outer A ring.

Mouse
Research Bolsters Controversial Theory of Aging
Aging is a process we humans tend to fight every step of the way. The results
of a mouse study underscore the potential of antioxidants as a weapon in
that battle: animals genetically modified to produce more antioxidant enzymes
lived longer than control animals did. They also exhibited fewer age-related
health problems overall.

Dino-Blood
Redux by Gary Hurd.
On 24 March 2005, a team of paleontologists lead by Mary Higby Schweitzer
published their discovery of dinosaur soft tissues recovered from the cortical
bone of a T. rex femur.

'Jurassic'
Tree Planted in London Park. May 11, 2005
A "Jurassic" tree dating from the dinosaur age and long thought
to have been extinct for 200 million years was planted Tuesday at a park
in London by British wildlife expert Sir David Attenborough. One of the
rarest trees in the world, the Wollemi Pine was found in Australia by a
national parks officer, David Noble, in 1994. The discovery astonished botanists
worldwide who had thought the tree died out millions of years ago.

Earth Science

Hadean
times - were they really hell on Earth?Early Earth was supposed to be a seething inferno of molten magma. So
how come a bunch of crystals are telling a different story? The red rocks
of the Jack Hills in Western Australia have an incredible story to tell.
Here, deep in the ancient heart of Australia, lie some of the oldest rocks
ever found on Earth - up to 3.7 billion years old.

'Dragon-Like'
Dinosaur Discovered May 3, 2005
A new "dragon-like" dinosaur that used its flat head to slam into
rivals has been discovered in the United States, the Children's Museum of
Indianapolis announced.

Earth
Holding On to Sun's Heat, Study Suggests
The earth is retaining more of the sun's energy than it is sending back
into space, scientists say. That is the conclusion from a new simulation
that takes into account such climate forcing variables as greenhouse gas
and aerosol concentrations, land use and surface reflectivity, and that
calculates global temperatures and other climate values for the atmosphere
and the oceans. And a decade of measurements of the ocean's heat content
confirms the model's predictions.

Physics

Quantum
Black Holes
Ever since physicists invented particle accelerators, nearly 80 years ago,
they have used them for such exotic tasks as splitting atoms, transmuting
elements, producing antimatter and creating particles not previously observed
in nature. With luck, though, they could soon undertake a challenge that
will make those achievements seem almost pedestrian. Accelerators may produce
the most profoundly mysterious objects in the universe: black holes.

Zoology

Lungless
Salamander Turns Up in Asia. May 5, 2005
A type of lungless salamander thought to be confined to the Americas and
parts of Italy and Sardinia has been found in Asia, according to the current
issue of Nature. The startling discovery has been likened to finding a panda
in California or a kangaroo in Argentina.